The Badger's Revenge (22 page)

“The Badger.”

“
Sí
,” Juan Carlos said, standing up, facing Josiah, looking him squarely in the eye. “I know of his bounty on your head. Have been offered it myself. You will never be safe as long as he lives.”

“Why is he in Mexico?”

“To negotiate an alliance with Juan Cortina. If that happens, you are surely a dead man, Josiah Wolfe, and there is nothing I can do to save you.”

Josiah stood at the door and watched Juan Carlos
disappear into the darkness. He was troubled by what he had learned from his friend. In no way, shape, or form did Josiah expect to be ready to leave for Mexico anytime soon. It would take two days at the least—to which Juan Carlos had reluctantly agreed—to make arrangements for Lyle's care and safety, as well as prepare for the journey.

Juan Carlos had warned Josiah that each minute Liam O'Reilly lived as a free man was one more minute that both he and Lyle lived in the shadow of certain death. It was a warning Josiah was well aware of, took note of, but did not acknowledge vocally. Surely this was not the warning Pedro had meant to give . . . How would he know?

Fear in his own voice was not something Josiah wanted to hear, and he knew it would be there if he spoke. Juan Carlos would not look down on him, but still, Josiah had learned a long time ago that fear was worse than any kind of unseen sickness he had ever encountered. Once it was set free, it was deadly.

There was plenty to fear. Outlaws had came for Lyle once before, knew the boy was Josiah's weak spot, and there was nothing stopping them from plotting and acting on a better-thought-out second attempt.

There was no question that Josiah understood the danger he was in in Austin, but at this late hour there was nothing he could do about any of it. Tomorrow would have to come first.

Josiah closed the door to the house and stood just inside, resting his back against the door.

He could still smell the coffee he'd shared with Juan Carlos, hear Lyle breathing in the next room. Somewhere in the distance a dog—not a coyote—barked lazily, once every minute or so, like it was bored, not alarmed. A train might shake the house in the middle of the night as it made its run through Austin and then on north, but for now, everything seemed quiet, like it should, in its place.

That realization didn't calm Josiah. His mind was running furiously, like a pig that had slipped loose of the butcher, its neck just barely nicked. His whole body ached, including both new wounds and old. He felt sick and tired—the previous days had finally caught up with him, and now he had to think of leaving again.

His stomach lurched, and for the first time in a long time, he honestly didn't know what he was going to do.

There was a time in his life when he'd found comfort on difficult days in the bed next to his wife, Lily, snuggled together in warmth, passion, and acceptance—but now, nearly three years after her death, he could barely hear her voice or see her face in his memory.

No matter how hard he had tried to keep Lily alive in his mind, her image kept fading away, slipping just out of his grasp, almost like she had never existed in the first place.

Lyle favored Lily, had her hair and her button nose. Sometimes, Josiah was sure Lyle had inherited Lily's eyes, too, soft blue, the color of a pale summer day, but mostly he thought that it was just wishful thinking, hoping that Lily, maybe in some form or another, could watch him through their son's eyes, watch out for all of them like an angel. But Josiah, in the wake of Lily's death, was reluctant to believe in a greater life after death, or the existence of power, spirit, or hope. Lyle had Lyle's eyes. Lily couldn't see him any more than he could see her.

Loneliness enveloped Josiah then, adding to his physical pain, but he pushed away his grief as best he could, settling in for the night.

His senses were like exposed nerves.

Every sound seemed loud and dangerous. The creaking and settling of the house sounded like a series of odd unmatched footsteps, and the wind carried voices from far away—all plotting against him.

He knew he was letting his fear get to him, that he was overwhelmed.

He chided himself, screamed silently in his mind at his own weaknesses, because he had surely been in worse situations than being home alone with a sleeping two-year-old boy in the next room.

War and capture by the Comanche had been more uncertain—but then he never totally feared for his survival. He knew that the right opportunity would present itself so he could escape the Indians, or conquer the Northern Aggressors, and return home.

Now he was not so sure of victory—or what to do next.

He moved through the house quietly, each step taken like he was inches away from the enemy, fearful that he would wake Lyle.

Safe, he continued outside to the privy. Before stepping inside, he reached down and slid his Bowie out of his belt, then threw open the door, expecting Big Shirt or Liam O'Reilly to be staring back at him, his own Winchester in one of their hands.

It would only take one shot at close range to end everything. Josiah wasn't taking any undue chances. Those voices on the wind might just be real.

There was nothing inside the privy except the normal stink after a warm day.

At any other time, Josiah would have laughed out loud at himself. But he didn't. He took Juan Carlos's warning seriously, knew firsthand what O'Reilly and the Comanche were capable of.

The city would not fend them off. Probably the opposite. Most likely, they had rat holes that they shared with other outlaws, escape routes throughout all of Austin, where they could flee, unseen. Josiah was sure of it.

His business complete, Josiah stepped back outside and stopped to make sure everything in the surrounding area remained as it should. His fingers tingled.

The sky was clear, the stars staring innocently down at him. The bored dog continued to bark at its regular interval. Way off in the distance, piano music tinkled upward into the air out of a saloon. The world continued on while Josiah was fighting with shadows and threats that were not real—at the moment.

From where he was standing, all Josiah could see was one roof after another, a line of houses in all four directions; no mountains in the distance, no piney forests, no broad vistas, just human life up close.

He felt like a bull locked in a stall so tight that he couldn't move or breathe. He had to wonder again if making the move from Seerville to Austin had been worth it. If the risk and the sacrifice would give Lyle a better life after all or if he was just fooling himself.

Neither of them was any safer in the city than they had been in the country. Maybe less so.

Right now, he felt like a fool, defeated. And he knew he couldn't let that feeling last . . . or he would drop his guard, overreact, and end up a dead man. Defeat—giving up—was just as much a poison as fear was, and Josiah knew it.

Shaking off the negative blanket of thought, Josiah eased back into the house.

He checked on Lyle, who had not moved, then set about bringing darkness to the small house. Once the last hurricane lamp was extinguished, he stood in the center of the house and let his eyes adjust to the fullness of night.

He did not know the shadows very well in the little house, had spent little time there—and when he had been there, Ofelia was in charge.

Scrap was right, she was more like his wife than a wet nurse. Josiah wondered if Ofelia felt that way. She had never implied that she minded the way things were—they both had agreed that they would know when the day came to change things.

Maybe it was time, Josiah thought.

He headed into the room where Lyle was sleeping and checked on the boy one last time. He was lost in dreamland, eyes pinched shut, the thin blanket gripped in his tiny hand.

Josiah's bed was on the other side of the room—in actuality only a few feet away from Lyle's bed. He pulled off his clothes, not thinking a thing about it, letting them fall to the floor.

It wasn't until he was completely out of the clothes that he realized—remembered—that the clothes didn't belong to him. They were Charlie Webb's clothes.

He bundled up the shirt and pants and set them next to the bed gently, thinking that he had to save them from harm, they did not belong to him, they were on loan. Someday he would take the opportunity to return them to Charlie's widow.

Billie Webb had been kind and generous to him, and as he settled into bed, he stared up through the window at the moon and wondered if she was all right, safe from harm. He wondered what would become of her and her newborn baby. She was not that much different than he was now. Alone in the world with more responsibility than she should have had to handle. But something told Josiah that Billie could handle whatever came her way. Like him, she had no choice.

With images of Billie weighing heavily in his mind, Josiah quickly drifted off to sleep.

 

 

The moon had fallen from the sky, and the room was totally black now. It was the middle of the night, silent beyond the sound that had woken him up. Any dream that may have pulled at Josiah slipped away, out of his grasp and memory, just like the images of Lily. He hadn't been dreaming of her, he was sure of it—knew how that felt when he woke; like there was a hole in his chest and fire in his loins.

Out of instinct, his hand went to the empty side of the bed, always—still—checking for Lily to be there. The waste of time and motion could have proven costly since the thump that had woken him up in the first place happened again, only this time it was louder.

Josiah reached to the floor for the Colt Frontier, eased the hammer back, and aimed the barrel toward the door, all the while listening carefully for the next sound.

It only took a couple of heartbeats before the next thud came. Somebody was on the front porch.

As he eased out of bed, Lyle stirred. Josiah stopped, caught his breath, then slid past the boy's bed and out into the front room. He hugged the wall and saw a shadow move across the window.

Two heavy footsteps stopped just outside the door.

The heavy knock on the door surprised Josiah. He wasn't expecting it. He was expecting somebody to kick in the door and rush in, guns blazing.

“You in there, Wolfe!”

Josiah recognized the voice just as Lyle started to scream, startled out of his sleep in the middle of the night by the loud knock on the door. In a flash, Josiah went from protector, ready to kill, to angry as a bull—ready to kill.

“Come on, Wolfe. Wake up!” It was Scrap Elliot. And he was obviously as drunk as a cowboy fresh off the trail.

Josiah lit a lamp, washing the house in a quick,
bright light, then swung open the front door. He did not hesitate like he had with Juan Carlos, unsure and fearful that the Mexican was not alone. He didn't care if Scrap wasn't alone—didn't care if the late night rousing was a trick and Scrap was O'Reilly's ploy. The Colt was still in his hand, any fear lost, replaced with anger, close enough to erupt into an urge to kill. He couldn't remember being so mad.

Scrap was leaning on the jamb, trying to hold himself up, smiling crookedly at Josiah. He smelled like he'd washed every part of his body in whiskey for the last week. He was pickled.

Lyle screamed at the top of his lungs from his bed.

“Get in here.” Josiah grabbed Scrap's shirt collar and pulled him inside.

Scrap stumbled inside the door, crashing to the floor with a whoop, holler, and cackle. Lyle screamed even louder. Josiah looked out the door, up and down the street, and didn't see hide nor hair of any living creature except Scrap's blue roan mare, Missy, who was standing nervously in front of the house.